BART goes from the airport to downtown San Francisco.

A car is useless in the city. Rent the car as you leave the city, and pick up the car from an agency in the city. As I understand it, airport rentals pay a stiff surcharge.

Yes -definitely rent downtown as you leave the city. See my post on your other thread.

Having a car in the City is a detriment--parking is a nightmare and expensive. It's best to rent the car when you're leaving SF.

The taxi fare to SF is $40-45 plus a $2 airport surcharge. SuperShuttle will cost $27 for 2 people. BART to downtown SF is $8.25 per person. To take BART, use AirTrain (the free airport "train") to transfer from your terminal to the BART station at SFO.

Normally, I would say you don't need a car in a city, but on our first few trips, we did have a car for a day or two and really took advantage of it. We drove to and through GG Park and the museums, the Legion of Honor, the cliffs on the west side of the city, across the GG Bridge and up for the views from the National Recreation area, Telegraph Hill, the painted ladies and lots more. I find the buses slow and taxis sometimes hard to come by. Yes, it is expensive to park, but on those trips, it helped us cover a lot. You also have to be comfortable driving in a hilly city. We were there last month and I actually parked my son's car on a street near the Embarcadero (free) during a weekend. I've used garages near Union Square in the past.

Take the Supershuttle. The BART trip takes 45+ minutes, depending on time of day. The shuttle takes about 20+ minutes.

Most car agencies have a location at the Downtown Center Garage. Google it for info.

Unless the Supershuttle goes directly downtown, and only downtown, there is no guarantee that it will take only 20+ minutes. We have given up on it because the last time it took us out into the avenues and then the Inner Sunset before dropping us off home on the other side of Twin Peaks; and that was after circling the airport a couple of times to pick up other passengers. Public transportation, with a bus transfer would have been faster.

>>>A car is useless in the city<<

Yes - if you are a visitor with limited time who wants to spend most of their sightseeing hours in the area east of Van Ness. We had 2 cars for 7 years while living in the Noe Valley - and used one of them almost daily to go to Golden Gate Park to jog, play volleyball, or ride our bikes, drive to Union St, Marina, Avenues, etc for dinner, to the lumber yard, grocery store, zoo, Ocean Beach. We also used a car to drive to work when we worked outside of The City.

Visitors who want to get "off the beaten path" could use a car to visit GG Park, Fort Point & Crissy field, Postcard Row, Noe Valley, West Portal, Twin Peaks, Haight (difficult parking), Sea Cliff, Land's End .

Stu Dudley

thanks everyone. I googled Downtown Center garage for car rentals, but only found Dollar. Are others there? So far I have found a $400 fare for a premium car ( gas guzzler??) that can be returned to San Diego. All other options are 2or 3 times that quote, I would like to find something in the city without going back to the airport. But it's not worth an extra $400.

Most major car rental agencies (National, Alamo, Dollar, Thrifty, Hertz) have Union Square locations (e.g., O'Farrell, Mason, or Post Streets). A few (Avis, Budget) are in the Embarcadero, Fisherman's Wharf or Moscone Convention Center areas.

If you are a Costco or AAA member, try using their web sites to book a car. They will apply the appropriate discounts. If you aren't a member, try looking for a car rental discount code through sites such as currentcodes.com or couponcabin.com.

In your other posting about car rentals, I replied about using Budget in San Bruno. Without any discount codes, a one week rental between San Bruno and San Diego airport (one way) was $305 for a standard-sized car and $259 for a compact car.